A Friend of Caesar Part 48

Chapter XX

Cleopatra

I

A "clear singing zephyr" out of the west sped the ships on their way.

Down they fared along the coast, past the isle of Capreae, then, leaving the Campanian main behind, cut the blue billows of the Tyrrhenian Sea; all that day and night, and more sail and oar swept them on. They flew past the beaches of Magna Graecia, then, betwixt Scylla and Charybdis, and Sicilia and its smoke-beclouded cone of aetna faded out of view, and the long, dark swells of the Ionian Sea caught them. No feeble merchantman, hugging coasts and headlands, was Demetrius. He pushed his three barques boldly forward toward the watery sky-line; the rising and setting sun by day and the slowly circling stars by night were all-sufficient pilots; and so the ships flew onward, and, late though the season was, no tempest racked them, no swollen billow tossed them.

Cornelia sat for hours on the p.o.o.p, beneath a crimson awning, watching the foam scudding out from under the swift-moving keel, and feeling the soft, balmy Notos, the kind wind of the south, now and then puff against her face, when the west wind veered away, and so brought up a whiff of the spices and tropic bloom of the great southern continent, over the parching deserts and the treacherous quicksands of the Syrtes and the broad "unharvested sea."

Cornelia had seen the cone of aetna sinking away in the west, and then she looked westward no more. For eastward and ever eastward fared the ships, and on beyond them on pinions of mind flew Cornelia. To Africa, to the Orient! And she dreamed of the half-fabulous kingdoms of a.s.syria and Babylonia; of the splendours of Memphis and Nineveh and Susa and Ecbatana; of Eastern kings and Eastern gold, and Eastern pomp and circ.u.mstance of war; of Ninus, and Cyrus the Great, and Alexander; of Cheops and Sesostris and Amasis; of the hanging gardens; of the treasures of Sardanapalus; of the labyrinth of Lake Moeris; of a thousand and one things rare and wonderful. Half was she persuaded that in the East the heart might not ache nor the soul grow cold with pain. And all life was fair to Cornelia. She was sure of meeting Drusus soon or late now, if so be the G.o.ds--she could not help using the expression despite her atheism--spared him in war. She could wait; she could be very patient. She was still very young. And when she counted her remaining years to threescore, they seemed an eternity.

The pall which had rested on her life since her uncle and her lover parted after their stormy interview was lifted; she could smile, could laugh, could breathe in the fresh air, and cry, "How good it all is!"

Demetrius held his men under control with an iron hand. If ever the pirate ship was filled with sights and sounds unseemly for a lady's eyes and ears, there were none of them now. Cornelia was a princess, abjectly waited on by her subjects. Demetrius's attention outran all her least desires. He wearied her with presents of jewellery and costly dresses, though, as he quietly remarked to Agias, the gifts meant no more of sacrifice to him than an obol to a rich spendthrift.

He filled her ears with music all day long; he entertained her with inimitable narrations of his own adventurous voyages and battles. And only dimly could Cornelia realize that the gems she wore in her hair, her silken dress, nay, almost everything she touched, had come from earlier owners with scant process of law.

Demetrius was no common rover. He had been a young man of rare culture before misfortune struck him. He knew his Homer and his Plato as well as how to swing a sword. "Yet," as he remarked with half jest, half sigh, "all his philosophy did not make him one whit more an honest man."

And in his crew of Greeks, Orientals, and Spaniards were many more whom calamity, not innate wickedness, so Cornelia discovered, had driven to a life of violence and rapine.

Demetrius, too, gave no little heed to Artemisia. That pretty creature had been basking in the sunshine of Agias's presence ever since coming on shipboard. It was tacitly understood that Cornelia would care for the welfare and education of Pratinas's runaway, until she reached a maturity at which Agias could a.s.sert his claims. The young h.e.l.lene himself had been not a little anxious lest his cousin cast obstacles in the way of an alliance with a masterless slavegirl; for of late Demetrius had been boasting to his kinsman that their family, before business misfortunes, had been wealthy and honourable among the merchant princes of Alexandria. But the worthy pirate had not an objection to make; on the contrary, he would sit for hours staring at Artemisia, and when Agias demanded if he was about to turn rival, shook his head and replied, rather brusquely:--

"I was only thinking that Daphne might be about her age, and look perhaps like her."

"Then you do not think your little daughter is dead?" asked Agias, sympathetic, yet personally relieved.

"I know nothing, nothing," replied his cousin, a look of ineffable pain pa.s.sing over his fine features; "she was a mere infant when I was arrested. When I broke loose, I had to flee for my life. When I could set searchers after her, she had vanished. Poor motherless thing; I imagine she is the slave of some gay lady at Antioch or Ephesus or Rome now."

"And you do not know who stole her?" asked Agias.

"Don't tear open old wounds," was the retort. "I know nothing. I think--but it matters little what I think. There was that sly-eyed, smooth-tongued Greek, like that Phaon who met his deserts, who was no stranger to Domitius's blackmailings. I _feel_ that he did it. Never mind his name. If ever I get the snake into my power--" and Demetrius's fingers tightened around the thick, hard cable he was clutching, and crushed the solid hemp into soft, loose strands; then he broke out again, "Never mention this another time, Agias, or I shall go mad, and plunge down, down into the waves, to go to sleep and forget it all!"

Agias was faithful to the injunction; but he observed that Demetrius showed Artemisia the same attention as Cornelia, albeit mingled with a little gracious and unoffending familiarity.

II

After a voyage in which one pleasant day succeeded another, Cornelia awoke one morning to hear the creak of blocks and tackle as the sailors were lowering sail. The full banks of oars were plashing in the waves, and on deck many feet were rushing to and fro, while officers shouted their orders. Coming out of her cabin, the young lady saw that the end of her seafaring was close at hand. Even to one fresh from the azure atmosphere of the Campanian Bay, the sky was marvellously clear. The water was of a soft green tint, that shaded off here and there into dark cerulean. The wind was blowing in cool puffs out of the north. A long, slow swell made the stately triremes rock gracefully. Before them, in clear view, rose the tall tower of the Pharos,--the lighthouse of Alexandria,--and beyond it, on the low-lying mainland, rose in splendid relief against the cloudless sky the glittering piles and fanes of the city of the Ptolemies. It was a magnificent picture,--a "picture" because the colours everywhere were as bright as though laid on freshly by a painter's brush. The stonework of the buildings, painted to gaudy hues, brought out all the details of column, cornice, and pediment. Here Demetrius pointed out the Royal Palace, here the Theatre; here, farther inland, the Museum, where was the great University; in the distance the whole looked like a painting in miniature. Only there was more movement in this picture: a splendid yacht, with the gold and ivory glittering on its prow and p.o.o.p, was shooting out from the royal dockyards in front of the palace; a ponderous corn-ship was spreading her dirty sails to try to beat out against the adverse breeze, and venture on a voyage to Rome, at a season when the Italian traffic was usually suspended. The harbour and quays were one forest of masts. Boats and small craft were gliding everywhere. Behind the pirate's triremes several large merchantmen were bearing into the harbour under a full press of sail.

"And this, your ladyship," said Demetrius, smiling, "is Egypt. Does the first sight please you?"

"Does it not!" exclaimed Cornelia, drinking in the matchless spectacle. "But you, kind sir, do you not run personal peril by putting into this haven for my sake?"

Demetrius laughed.

"It speaks ill for the law-abiding qualities of my countrymen, lady,"

said he, "that I have nothing now to fear. I have too many great friends both in the court and in the city to fear arrest or annoyance.

Here I may not stay long, for if it were to be noised in Rome that a pirate were harboured habitually at Alexandria, a demand for my arrest would come to the king quickly enough, and he must needs comply. But for a few days, especially while all Rome is in chaos, I am safe; and, come what may, I would be first warned if any one intended to lay hands on me."

Indeed, Demetrius's boast as to his own importance in Alexandria was soon verified. The customs officials were all obsequiousness when they went through the form of levying on the cargo of the ship. The master of the port was soon in Demetrius's own cabin over a crater of excellent wine, and no sooner had the vessels touched the quay than their crews were fraternizing with the hosts of stevedores and flower-girls who swarmed to meet the new arrivals.

A few days later Cornelia and Fabia found themselves received as members of the household of no less a person than Cleomenes, a distant kinsman of Demetrius and Agias, and himself one of the great merchant princes of the Egyptian capital. The Roman ladies found a certain amount of shyness to overcome on their own part and on that of their hosts. Cleomenes himself was a widower, and his ample house was presided over by two dark-skinned, dark-eyed daughters, Berenice and Monime--girls who blended with the handsome Greek features of their father the soft, sensuous charm of his dead Egyptian wife. Bashful indeed had been these maidens in contact with the strangers who came bearing with them the haughty pride of all-conquering Rome. But after a day or two, when Cornelia had cast off the hauteur begotten of diffidence, and Fabia had opened the depths of her pure womanly character, the barriers were thrown down rapidly enough; and Cornelia and Fabia gained, not merely an access to a new world of life and ideas, but two friends that they could regard almost as sisters.

It was a new thing for these Roman ladies to meet a foreigner on terms approaching equality. A non-Roman had been for them a servant, an intelligent underling, nothing more; even Agias and Demetrius they had regarded as friends, very close and agreeable, but whom it was a distinct condescension not to treat with ostentatious superiority. But to sustain this feeling long with Berenice and Monime was impossible.

The young Egyptians were every whit as cultured, as intelligent, as themselves, every whit as accustomed to deference from others, and implicitly a.s.sumed the right to demand it. The result was that Cornelia found herself thinking less and less about being a Roman, and more and more regarded her gracious hosts as persons in every way equal to herself.

And less and less of a Roman, Cornelia, the h.e.l.lene-hater, became.

Greek was the only tongue now that sounded in her ear, unless she talked privately with Fabia or was beguiled into trying to learn a little Egyptian--a language Berenice and Monime spoke fluently. The clothes she wore were no longer stola and palla, but chiton and himation. The whole atmosphere about her was foreign, down to the cries on the streets. And Italy was very far away, and the last memories thereof none the most pleasant.

It chanced that one morning Cleomenes, Monime, and Cornelia were driving down the great central street, under the shadow of seemingly endless colonnades.

"_A!_ dearest one," cried Monime, "why must you think of leaving our lovely Alexandria, of going back to cold, cheerless Rome? What good thing does Rome send out but stern men and sharp iron?"

Cornelia shook her head and made answer--

"You Alexandrians are not one nation, but all the world; therefore you think all who are less cosmopolitan poor. See, I count in the crowds not only the dark Egyptians and fair Greeks, but a Persian in his splendid long kaftan, and a very venerable Jew, and a wiry little Arab, and Syrians, and negroes, and, I think, a Hindoo."

"And yourself, my lady, a Roman," concluded Cleomenes. "Truly all the earth has met in our city."

They whirled down the splendid highway that ran straight as an arrow the whole length of the city, lined on either side by a forest of the infinite number of columns of the great stretches of porticos.

Handsomely dressed cavalrymen of the palace guard were dashing to and fro over the clean, hard pavement; elegant carriages containing the n.o.ble and wealthy were whirling in every direction. At each glance, the eye lit on some pleasing bit of sculpture, some delicate curve of architecture. Statues were everywhere, everywhere colour, everywhere crowds of gayly dressed citizens and foreigners. Cornelia contrasted the symmetrical streets, all broad, swept, and at right angles--the triumph of the wise architectural planning of Dinocrates--with the dirty, unsightly, and crooked lanes of the City of the Seven Hills, and told herself, as she had told herself often in recent days, that Romans had much yet to learn.

They drove on past the Amphitheatre toward the Egyptian quarter of the Rhacotis; and here, at the intersection of the Great Street with the other broad way leading from the "Gate of the Moon" on the harbour to the "Gate of the Sun" on Lake Mareotis, a moving hedge of outriders, cavalrymen, and foot-guards met them.

"The queen coming from the Serapeum," said Cleomenes, drawing rein.

Cornelia saw half-naked Numidian footmen thrusting back the crowd that bustled in the Omphalos--the great square where the two highroads met.

Behind them pushed a squadron of light cavalry in silvered armour and splendid purple and scarlet uniforms. Then, in the midst of all, moved a chariot drawn by four horses white as snow, the harness resplendent with gold and jewels; at either side ran fan-bearers, waving great ma.s.ses of bright ostrich plumes; a gaudy parasol swept over the carriage itself. There were three occupants, whereof two stood: an Egyptian, gaunt and of great height, clad in plain white linen, who was driving, and a handsome, gaudily dressed Greek youth, who was holding the parasol. Cornelia could just catch the profile of a young woman seated between them. The face was not quite regular, but marvellously intelligent and sensitive; the skin not pale, yet far from dark, and perfectly healthy and clear; the eyes restive and piercing. The queen was dressed plainly in Greek fashion; her himation was white, her only ornament a great diamond that was blazing like a star on her breast. Upon the coils of her heavy, dark hair sat a golden circlet faced in front with the likeness of the head of the venomous uraeus snake--the emblem of Egyptian royalty. This was all Cornelia could observe in the brief time the queen was in view. Some of the people--Egyptians mostly--cried out to her in their own tongue:--

"Hail to the ever glorious Daughter of Ra!"

But the queen paid them little heed. Once her restless eyes lit on the carriage of Cleomenes, and she made a slight inclination of the head in return to that gentleman's salute, for Cleomenes had standing at court as one of the "friends of the king."[172]

[172] A high order of Egyptian n.o.bility.

The cortege rolled away toward the palace.

"This Cleopatra is a rather remarkable woman," observed Cornelia, for the sake of saying something.

"Indeed, that is true," replied Cleomenes, as he turned to drive homeward. "She is worthy to have lived in the days of the first Ptolemies, of Ptolemaeus Soter and Philadelphus and Euergetes. She is still very young, only twenty, and yet five years ago she was so fascinating that when Antonius, of whom I have heard you speak, came here with Gabinius's expeditions he quite lost his heart to her. She has a marvellous talent for statecraft and intrigue and diplomacy. You know that, nominally at least, she has to share her crown with young Ptolemaeus, her younger brother. He is a worthless rascal, but his tutor, the eunuch Pothinus, really wields him. Pothinus, as the custom is, was brought up with him as his playmate, and now Pothinus wants to drive out the queen, and rule Egypt through his power over the king.

His ambition is notorious, but the queen has not been able to lay hands on him for treason."